I settled a case on July 18th. Really, I did. The judge thanked us for our hard work and gave us plenty of time to get it down on paper. All the way until today, in fact. I handed a draft to my opponent almost immediately. The markup came back at the beginning of last week. I turned it right back round, accepting all changes except in one area.

Then came the holiday weekend, and the Tuesday after, which, for all intents and purposes, was still a holiday weekend on the other end. Armed with great hope, I delivered a signed copy of my ::chortle:: final draft to the other side right before heading out of Rochester late on Tuesday.

Objections then flowed in by email. I answered them- only to get more late-day "sorry, I was in meetings" responses and still something short of a resolution.

Now the appointed day is here- but I can relax! Because I was given Special Dispensation™ to appear by phone this morning without having to shlep in and out for a five minute appearance.

Does the Court call me? No, I was told- I'm supposed to call D, the Deputy. Whose number is not in The Book.

The main number is, though so I called that one- and was given a direct number for D.

Boo-da-BEEP! We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.

Back to the main one, and a new direct number got handed out, one digit off. Which, blessedly, resulted in ringing.

And more ringing, and more, and more, and more indeed. Eventually, it just cut off.

Old-school systems do not like New School things. Some other courts which have long-distance ranges (such as the Bankruptcy Court based in Utica, which also serves the Binghamton area, and the federal appellate court for this and two other states based in Manhattan) have experimented with video links to make it more convenient for practitioners to have their cases heard without having to drive over 100 miles. Utica has significantly cut back the access to their Binghamton video system, and last I checked the Court of Appeals has discontinued it altogether. Probably because somebody tripped over a cord on a single day, resulting in a minor inconvenience to one or more Hooded Figures, who used their awesome powers to cancel the whole thing rather than have that ever happen again.

So as I sit here, disconnected, my case is probably being called any second- hopefully with the opposition reporting our being a day away from a final Final FINAL version of the agreement to resolve it which I think we worked out before the appointed hour.

Or I'm screwed. One or the other.

ETA. Well, neither- but safely enough away from the screwing.

The fFF version needs to be run by one other party, and I need to get client signatures about a week sooner than I thought I did, but if either of those presents a bug, I simply have to show up a week from today- when I'm there anyway:)